SSAC Members

(08/2024)

Ram Mohan (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rmohan/ is Chief Strategy Officer of Identity Digital, the world's largest TLD registry operator. Ram works closely with the CEO, board members and other executives to achieve Identity Digitals' long-term vision. Ram is responsible for the company's strategic-planning processes, leading the development of strategy, translating it for people across functions and business units, driving organizational change, and aligning the company towards innovation. Ram was earlier the COO at Afilias, which was acquired by Donuts in 2020, where he led the strategic growth of the company in registry services and security as well as new product sectors such as Managed DNS, IoT, and Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs).

Ram is a founding charter member of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC). He served as the SSAC's non-voting liaison to the ICANN Board of Directors from 2008-2018. During his tenure on the ICANN Board, he chaired the Risk Committee, the Universal Acceptance Committee, and the Internationalized Domain Name Committee, served on the Governance, Compensation and Technology Committees; Chaired the Board Strategic Planning Committee, and helped the Board navigate important strategic and governance issues relevant to global non-profit Boards.

Previous positions include Co-Founder TurnTide (an anti-spam company acquired by Symantec 2001); COO Infonautics (a publicly traded Ed-Tech company).

He is an inventor on nineteen U.S. patents in Internet technology, recipient of InfoWorld's 'Premier 100 Technology Leaders' award, a CIO100 honoree and Guinness World Record holder (2018). He completed his BS in Electrical Engineering and MBA in India before working on his MS at Drexel and post-graduate coursework at Harvard and INSEAD.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Identity Digital, Chief Strategy Officer.
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Executive role, including managing various aspects of the company.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: Board member at CleanDNS, Inc., a cybersecurity company.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN.: None.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: My employer, Identity Digital, and its predecessor, Afilias, are subject to contracts with ICANN for the fulfilment of registry services.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." No
7. If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): 

Tara Whalen is Privacy Lead at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Tara previously worked as a privacy engineer in industry roles at Cloudflare, Google, and Apple, and as an IT Research Analyst at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. She conducted post-doctoral research in computer security at Carleton University, after receiving a PhD in computer science at Dalhousie University, and obtained a Master of Laws (Concentration in Law and Technology) from the University of Ottawa. Tara has over 25 years of experience in the information security and privacy fields, including roles in research labs, academia, federal government institutions, and the private sector.

Disclosure of Interest

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Privacy Lead
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Lead a variety of industry and user groups toward the development of technologies that enhance the privacy of the Web. Engage with industry and academic leaders on privacy issues. Identify and cultivate new proposals for standardization to improve privacy through stakeholder outreach and consensus-building. Maintain a community of privacy reviewers to help with privacy reviews of W3C standards. Be responsible for creating and supporting W3C Working Groups (e.g., edit specifications, develop change proposals, monitor progress, produce tests). Communicate and seek consensus with the W3C Members and the community at-large on privacy issues and trends.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: None
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned financial or other material relationship with ICANN: None
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: None
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? No
7. If the answer is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s). 

Dr. James Galvin is Director of Strategic Relationships at Identity Digital, Inc., supporting and managing the company's relationships within Internet and IT communities. As an active, long-time member of these communities, Dr. Galvin participates in the development of the founding technical standards and policies upon which Internet applications and services are developed.

He was an integral participant in the initial development of Internet standards for secure email, domain name system security (DNSSEC), Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) security, and Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP). He has chaired working groups, served as document editor, and managed public domain implementations of security protocols. His many years of technical consulting experience include critical infrastructure design and analysis, risk management, and project management. James was Vice Chair of the SSAC from 2011-2017.

Dr. Galvin has a Bachelor of Science degree from Moravian College with a double major in Computer Science and Mathematics. He holds a Master's in Computer Science and Information Systems from the University of Delaware where he also earned his Doctorate with a dissertation entitled, Distributed Cryptographic Key Management System.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Identity Digital, Inc; Director Strategic Relationships
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Identity Digital is a registry service and DNS service provider, among other things. We actively engage with organizations whose activities include the design and development of policies and technical standards that directly affect our operation and business: I am responsible for Identity Digital's technical relationship with these organizations.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: None.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned financial or other material relationship with ICANN: Identity Digital is the registry service provider (in a few cases also the registry operator) for a number of TLDs that are contracted parties to ICANN.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: Identity Digital is the registry service provider (in a few cases also the registry operator) for a number of TLDs that are contracted parties to ICANN.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? No
7. If the answer to #6 is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s).

Greg Aaron is President of Illumintel Inc. He is an authority on the malicious use of domain names, and is an expert on DNS operations, domain name policy, and related intellectual property issues.

Greg has advised companies, law enforcement, governments, and the ICANN community regarding all kinds of Internet-based abuse and cybercrime. He has investigated and mitigated major phishing attacks, spamming gangs, counterfeit and trademark violations, malware distribution, child sexual abuse image cases, and fast-flux networks. He holds a private detective license in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, USA. Greg is Senior Research Fellow at the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) and is the editor of the APWG's ongoing Phishing Activity Trends Reports series, which is the world's major source of phishing metrics and analysis. He publishes separate data-driven studies about the prevalence and distribution of cybercrime. He has participated in numerous ICANN working groups, including policy-development groups related to privacy, registration data, and DNS abuse. He was the senior industry expert on the Ernst & Young team that evaluated the new TLD applications to ICANN in 2012-2013. He designed the first registry system to support multiple top-level domains, created the first gTLD anti-abuse policy and operational anti-abuse program, oversaw the launches of the .MOBI, .IN, and .ME TLDs, and managed the .INFO TLD. He is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): President, Illumintel Inc.
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Internet security, policy, and technology consulting.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary:  none
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned financial or other material relationship with ICANN: Mr. Aaron is a member of ICANN's Registry Services Evaluation Panel. Illumintel is a member of Interisle Consulting Group; Illumintel and Interisle may provide consulting services from time to time to ICANN contracted parties.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: Mr. Aaron is a member of ICANN's Registry Services Evaluation Panel. Interisle provides consulting services to ICANN from time to time.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? No

Benedict is employed by The Shadowserver Foundation, where he is the Chair of the Registrar of Last Resort (RoLR), a non-profit registrar that exists purely to quarantine malicious domains. From 2011 to 2014 he was a technical officer in the UK's National Cyber Crime Unit. There, his team was responsible for international cybercrime enquiries under the Budapest Convention and G8 24/7 process, and he was the unit's point of contact for 'threat to life' emergencies. He was previously a partner in a network and security start-up and worked as a researcher in the Secure Systems lab at HP Labs. He holds a Master's in Information Security from Royal Holloway University of London.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): My current employer is Shadowserver, where I am employed as Chair of the Registrar of Last Resort (RoLR) 
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Security research and operations
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: n/a
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: I am Chair of RoLR, an ICANN-accredited registrar. In 2016, my employer The Shadowserver Foundation received funding from Nominet UK, an ICANN-accredited registry. In 2020, my employer The Shadowserver Foundation entered into a contractor consulting agreement with ICANN.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years. As per my DOI, in 2020, my employer The Shadowserver Foundation entered into a contractor consulting agreement with ICANN. This is ongoing.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s): No 
7. If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): 

Maarten Aertsen is an engineer interested in the legal, social, and economic factors underlying the Internet's core technologies. He works as senior internet technologist at NLnet Labs, a small, independent public benefit organization contributing to the robustness, security and reliability of the Internet and the privacy of its users. Its open-source software and work on open standards for the Domain Name System and (safe) inter-domain routing is in use globally. Maarten enjoys bridging between technical and policy audiences and brings NLnet Labs' expertise to policy-making bodies, including governments, regulators, and multi-stakeholder forums.

He holds an MSc in Telematics from the University of Twente and an MSc in cybersecurity from Leiden University's Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs and previously worked as senior advisor for the Dutch National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NL) and as advisor on privacy and security for Deloitte Risk Services.

Disclosure of Interest

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): NLnet Labs, a not-for-profit foundation as senior internet technologist
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Open standards and open-source software development. NLnet Labs also provides expertise to policy making bodies, including governments, regulators, and multi-stakeholder forums. We regularly are consulted by a range of companies and organizations, including ICANN.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: None at the time of writing.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN:
   NLnet Labs does the occasional consultant job for ICANN and its stakeholders. We collaborate with and are sponsored by various parties in the industry; see our annual reports for details.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years:
   As far as I know, NLnet Labs has had contracts with ICANN in the last 5 years on the following subjects, none of which I was directly involved in:
   • ITHI tools review (end 2017/begin 2018, tools used by https://ithi.research.icann.org/ 
   • DNSSEC metrics study, with SIDN (See 
     https://www.sidnlabs.nl/en/news-and-blogs/dnssec-metrics-the-state-of-the-art-and-recommendations-for-the-future)
   • RSSAC028 measurements with SIDN 
     https://features.icann.org/rssac028-technical-analysis-naming-scheme-used-individual-root-servers https://indico.dns-oarc.net/event/46/contributions/1003/attachments/951/1768/RSSAC028
   • Representation on the ISO 3166 MA and liaison function to ISO Technical Committee 46 Workgroup 2.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." No
7. If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): no. 

Gautam Akiwate works at Apple in the Core Networking Team. At Apple, Gautam works on improving security and privacy for end users. Prior to Apple, Gautam completed his PhD at UC San Diego and was then a Postdoctoral Researcher at Stanford University. During this time, he worked on the security and resilience of the DNS ecosystem where his research primarily concerned with how attackers leverage byzantine trust relationships between various entities on the Internet to undermine the security and stability of the Internet. In a previous roles, he worked on a range of things right from mobile computing, kernels, to next generation storage systems.

Disclosure of Interest 

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s). 

   Apple, Engineer

2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above. 

   Security and Privacy

3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary. 

   N/A

4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned financial or other material relationship with ICANN. 

   Apple is a registry operator for .apple

5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years. 

   I am not aware of business transactions between my employer and ICANN. My employer is a registry operator so interacts with ICANN, but I am not involved in those interactions.

6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? 

   No

7. If the answer is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s).

Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) Gabriel Andrews received his bachelor's degree in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from the University of California at Santa Cruz and an M.B.A. from San Diego State University. He entered the FBI as a Special Agent in 2010, whereupon he was assigned to work criminal computer investigations in the Los Angeles Field Office. Since that first assignment, SSA Andrews has served as the FBI's Cyber representative to the Government of Canada out of the US embassy in Ottawa, as an SSA in FBI's Cyber division facilitating operational engagement with cybersecurity practitioners in the private sector, and most recently as an SSA in the FBI's Science & Technology Branch focusing on matters of Internet Governance and Standards Development.

Disclosure of Interest Statement

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Position: Supervisory Special Agent, Operational Technology Division
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above:  Andrews has worked primarily as an investigator on Criminal Computer Intrusion matters (Title 18, U.S.C. ss 1030) and in FBI Headquarters roles supporting such investigations. His most recent position, effective 2022, is to lead FBI engagement within ICANN (and other multistakeholder Internet policy/standards bodies) where the work of such bodies is likely to impact law enforcement and/or public safety equities.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: SSA Andrews is a member (and current co-chair) of the Public Safety Working Group under ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned financial or other material relationship with ICANN: None, beyond ICANN's presence as a nonprofit entity operating within the United States.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: None known.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Yes
7. If the answer is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s). There are two such arrangements/agreements: My participation as an SSAC member would be conducted professionally, serving the public safety interests of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. My participation as an SSAC member would also be conducted with the awareness and support of the GAC's Public Safety Working Group, for which I have preexisting membership and obligations.